Get in my belly.
Just when I thought this year would pass by with no one getting married, one of our friends who we met in Korea got engaged. Whew. I was concerned that I may not have a chance to eat wedding cake until 2013. That is cause for panic.
As great as my own wedding to B was, going to other people’s weddings is always, always better. Your own wedding is almost more stressful than it is worth. People know this, and that’s why you get handed a ton of checks at the reception. You literally have to get paid to go through it all. That would also account for why the checks from married attendees are in $100 increments. They know.
First of all, very few people actually have the opportunity to eat on their wedding day, much less at the reception. My own wedding day was a big ol’ non-eating extravaganza. That morning, my mom and I went out for crepes and I had like two bites of mine because my time was better spent willing potential asteroids away from the Earth on my special day than focusing on breakfast. Later, my mom and my bridesmaids ordered a ton of barbecue from my favorite joint in Memphis for lunch, but I couldn’t choke it down. This really was a shame because if I had just spilled some sauce on my dress, I probably would have relaxed. After the ceremony, we were too busy greeting people at the reception to eat more than like one strawberry and a smashed up piece of cake. So yeah, food and your own wedding don’t mix.
Also, no matter how relaxed and go-with-the-flow you normally are, on your wedding day you are going to feel like you’re in the middle of your period. I have known people who actually got their periods hours before their weddings, and at least they had something to blame their hormonal insanity on. I had nothing but my impending nuptials. The sad thing is that it’s all the other mess that makes you dread the day, not your actual spouse. Way to go, priorities.
The minutiae that causes drama is infuriating. I would much rather be angry about something important that goes wrong than something that doesn’t even matter. How dare my cousin’s boss’s dog’s groomer have the audacity to be offended when she doesn’t get invited to my wedding and starts circulating rumors that I was the one who gave the dog fleas? I’d prefer to be mad about the flowers or the cake or something actually worth my time than this tomfoolery.
The protocol of having a wedding can also be a headache. We live in modern times where (at least in theory) you can wear what you want, pursue any career you choose regardless of your race or sex, and behave like a lunatic on the subway and most people will expect it and not even really mind. Our society gives us a lot of freedom and leeway to behave the way we choose. This is not the case on your wedding day. Weddings are stuck in olden times and things must be done in the exact same way that they are done at Buckingham Palace. For instance, people actually believe that the couple’s firstborn will emerge with three arms if the bride does not carry something blue or if the groom sees her before the ceremony. Nevermind that a woman on her third marriage will likely still wear white on her wedding day. White is tradition.
That look of happiness is due to relief that the wedding is over and now we can go on vacation.
The best moment of my wedding day was when B and I were pronounced man and wife. By the end of the day, I was starving, tired, and extremely ready to be removed from my binding dress. But I was his wife. All the punishment of the day was totally worth it.
The Waiting 
I loved my wedding. It was stressful. The best man backed out at the last second, one bridesmaid went AWOL (and I never heard from her again), the ring bearer’s tux was so small that the cuffs of his shirt stuck out, and my grandfather’s tux was given to us wet. Yes, wet. We don’t know why. And everyone who was supposed to help me get ready was about an hour late. But I didn’t care. It was magical.
But the reception soon followed. Dun, dun, duuuuuuunnnnnn! I gave up on having a good time at the reception. That part was for my family. I even played a very unfun joke on a very unfun relative as a way of letting go and passing on the tension. I survived without killing anyone. But barely.
B’s best man didn’t even bother to go in for a fitting for his tux until a day before our wedding. It drove me CRAZY. And then he changed out of it at the reception, so he’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt in all the pictures of him giving his toast. Through those experiences I learned I am a lot more high-strung than I thought.
We did a stealth wedding – 30 or so of us showed up at Top of the Rock in midtown manhattan with an officiant one afternoon and got married. Then we took everyone out.
Still, even keeping it that low key was stressful enough that I really don’t want to do that again.
I also have a picture of my girl in her wedding dress on the way to the wedding buying a pretzel from a street vendor.
Love that pic!
I love this! Sounds like a great wedding to me. Simple, fun and interesting.
You should post that pic if you haven’t already, it sounds really cute!
Thanks Carly. We wanted simple above all else, and it really was.
We even got the officiant to say “Mawwaige” a la Princess Bride!
That’s awesome!!
I love that idea! I would never have a biggish wedding again. Ever. Elopement has gained considerable sheen and the very remembrance. And you’re right about the no-eating thing, Emily. I recall eating a single shrimp at my own reception. Backwards. So, a shrimp tail, technically. It was awful and should have been considered foreshadowing regarding the Groom. Anyway, I really enjoyed this post!.
OMG Laura, “It was awful and should have been considered foreshadowing regarding the Groom.” Freaking love this. I mean, not that you had to go through all that with him, but just the way you worded it :D Too funny.
Guap, you are infinitely wise. If I could go back I would SO elope or at least do it on the DL.
I’ve said for years that I’m going to elope when the time comes to get married. I’m not sure how my family will feel about that though.
B has some friends who eloped to Colorado and then came back home to Memphis and had a big party for friends and family where they revealed that they had gotten married. I guess you could say they had their wedding cake and ate it too ;)
Wow. That was corny. Apologies.
Lily had a beautiful wedding last August and do you know I’m still re-playing the events in my head? I want to re-do so many things, little things that maybe only I noticed but that now keep me up at nights an entire year later. I’m truly sick. I’ve even considered becoming a wedding planner just so I can have a re-do and make things right. haha!
I’m sure your wedding was wonderful and that nobody was aware of the minutiae dramas. If I were to do my own wedding over I would definitely have a tropical ceremony and vaycay with family and close friends and then go home and throw a fun party for everyone else. No stress.
I love that idea! What a great vow-renewal concept! You should do it, Lisa! :D
A resounding Amen! You made me laugh, as always, but, of course, you are also very wise. Now that we are married, I love going to weddings so much more. And am also far more inclined to show up with cash! Our wedding was a great day, but you definitely saw me freak out at various times throughout it! I had the very same feeling at the end: wow, that was surreal, and I want to get out of this dress, and holy crap, I am happy I am Eric’s wife. ;)
A wedding day just isn’t the same without some good freakouts, although I think you definitely kept them at a minimum considering the size of your wedding. Looking back, I think if I had had your wedding, I would have been in a coma by the end of the day.
[…] was just reading this post about wedding grievances and it got me thinking about my wedding. Not about grievances, but about […]
I always say, it’s good I got married young. No one would have me now. Plus, being young and poor, no one expected anything grand. Which was good, considering the whole thing cost under two grand. :)
AMEN to that! I got married when I was 24 and I am SO GLAD I snagged my husband when I did. How old were you when you got married? Ours was ultra-budget too; I think when all was said and done, the whole kit and kaboodle cost like $3500.
I was 23. Seems strange to think of now, but we’re still going strong, so I guess that’s good. :)
I do not like weddings, not at all. For the longest time I simply cried at them thinking I would never have one and it made me terribly depressed. Still I sit and watch thinking no one wants me to have this. Bitter party of one.
But of course I am married now, and we eloped to the mountains and it was perfect just the two of us. No stress. We ran into two elderly women camping who fed us homemade soup and cold beer as the meal right before we got married, then decided to be our flower girls. Then I got to eat all my cake. Plus I got to wear a purple dress.
Perfect!
great story!
Thanks!
I would be completely and utterly bitter if I were you. Don’t even get me started on how insane it is that our country legislates bigotry through a public vote. The best is when people run around saying that if gay marriage is ever made 100% legal in the US, they will move to Canada. Oh really? the same Canada where gay marriage is LEGAL? Dur.
Your wedding sounds awesome. ;)
Thanks :)
What would we do for entertainment without those crazy people running around?
This is so sweet. And hilarious.
Zach and I got married at the Justice of the Peace with only our immediate family present, and then we all went out for breakfast and ate cupcakes. lol We’d like to have a “real” wedding in a few years, maybe for our 5 year anniversary or something, so we can celebrate with all of our friends and stuff, but as far as the stress factor goes, our wedding was perfect.
That sounds awesome! Nuptials involving breakfast is a little slice of heaven. I am with you on the whole vow-renewal. I’d want to do this in five or 10 years. That way, we won’t be little kids anymore (I was 24 and B was 23 when we got married) and we won’t be such pushovers when it comes to making choices about what we want. When I look back, 70% of our wedding was dictated to us by others.
I agree with you: weddings are more fun for the attendees than for the couple. My husband (15 years later) still bemoans that we did not get to eat anything at our reception. Plates of food were served for us. We were told that the food was good. But guest greeting and reception duties meant no eating for us.
Yes indeed. I’ve also heard that the food was great at our wedding. Luckily, my mom saved the top tier of our cake and froze it for us. When we ate it a couple years later, it was still SO GOOD.
The in-laws were a royal pain in the backside the whole way thru – I bought a barrel of Ale from my local and after that everythng was fine! The cake looks yummy! Can I have some?
Good plan. A nip here and there on one’s wedding day never hurt anyone. It’s medicinal.
That cake does look fantastic. I want to track it down in real life. Right now it just lives in Google image search.
I’m a huge fan of other people’s weddings! An excuse to dress up, eat for free, get romantically, and dance to Purple Rain (It’s ALWAYS our request to the DJ). Then I make Hubs lift me a la Dirty Dancing when Prince goes crazy in the song.
Yes! The soundtrack to weddings is amazing! Plus there’s the open bar. Win-win.
So I know everyone always says that you won’t have time to eat and all this…but there’s this very stubborn part of me that still insists that my wedding will be different. That I won’t get stressed, that I will eat (I love to eat!!), and that there must be a way to break free of all this rhetoric. Boo.
Dude, make it happen! I want someone to buck the ridiculous protocol of weddings; it should be YOU! ;)
I am doing my best!!
Luckily, I can eat under all circumstances! The actual Wedding (as in mine) was great and basically stress-free…it was the ‘planning’ with my mother that induced Irritable Bowel Syndrome…